


Chameleons

by Ghelik



Series: Short Stories [10]
Category: No Fandom, Original Work
Genre: Angst, Monsters
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-23
Updated: 2016-08-23
Packaged: 2018-08-10 15:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 407
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7850272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghelik/pseuds/Ghelik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chameleons are monsters in human hides. Beware of the chameleon next door.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chameleons

There are chameleons in this world, hiding in human hides. But you can pick them from the crowds if you look carefully enough.

  
Chameleons adapt to their environment and thus are not to be trusted. For they are insects that feed on what’s not theirs, creatures without feelings that mimic others to stay hidden in the shadows, lying and cheating with every breath.

  
Chris was a chameleon, but sometimes he forgot. 

 

Forgot that nothing he felt was real: just a little something he had picked up from his neighbor or the child across the street; just an automatic reaction, natural reaction, to keep himself hidden. There is nothing humane about chameleons.

  
Maybe that’s the worst thing about these creatures, these beasts in human skins: they forget, the lies are so smooth and so perfect, they believe them themselves.

  
That’s why Chris sometimes laughed and sometimes cried. As if he’d have any right to.

  
That’s why, when they came for him, he fought, because chameleons are just animals and fighting to survive is the only thing animals know. The anger he felt wasn’t real; he just channeled it from the crowd. When he cried, he did it because people around him were scared of the monster. There were children there, and those cried, so Chris cried, too.

  
When he bled, what Chris felt wasn’t pain, because monsters don’t feel pain, they can inflict it. The words that left his mouth were just noises learned from the crowd he had been hiding in for so long. He couldn’t wield them well because they weren’t his. People didn’t listen because they knew, monsters are not to be trusted.

  
The chains might have been heavy and terrible for a human, but for such a creature as Chris, they were a necessity. Monsters in human hides have to be hunted down and put in chains. Nobody wants a beast as their neighbor.

  
Don’t shudder at his pleas, for like the repeated lines from an often watched movie; they’re not real.

  
Don’t turn your head, for that is a sign of fear and there’s little reason to fear them. Sneer with disdain instead. Let it know that the ruse was not convincing enough.

  
Don’t feel bad for Chris. You wouldn’t feel sorry for the cockroach beneath your heel. And that is what chameleons are: insects that feed on what’s not theirs, creatures without feelings that mimic others to stay hidden in the shadows.

**Author's Note:**

> As always this wasn't betad. 
> 
> Thanks for reading and commenting


End file.
